“We always say that teaching assistants are the frontline people in a big course,” says Instructional Assistant Adrienne Teale. “They are the ones who students interact with regularly in small groups. We wanted students to feel a sense of community and connection with their teaching assistants from day one and get the term off to a good start.”

Adrienne talked about the idea of a TikTok-style video with the department’s teaching assistants but didn’t know how to make it happen. “One of our TAs – Abby Buller (pictured above) – stepped up and offered to create the video from start to finish.”

Along with introducing themselves in the four-minute video, the teaching assistants answer the question “if you could be any part of the human body, what would it be?” and offer their best advice to first-year students.